Tag Archives: podcasts

Viola Vale has a paper to write for an important academic conference – the last thing she should do is go to the pub with her ex-best friend and his new girlfriend, to listen to an indie band she hates. But this is Belladonna University, where a good night out means magical explosions, literal trolls, hexed cocktails and sparkle pixie hair product. This particular night out will change Viola’s life, friendships and future forever…

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Sheep Might Fly now has its own Twitter account: @sheepmightfly
and its own Tumblr account: Sheep Might Fly
Follow along for updates, previews and other Sheep Might Fly specific chatter!

Charming is a kingdom where fairy tales come true, which has been bad news for its troubled royal family, but good news for the gutter press that thrives on the scandals and gossip provided by their teenage Princes Gone Wild. Kai is a rookie reporter at the Charming Herald. Dennis is a new Royal Hound, charged with protecting the self-destructive princes from disaster.

Disaster arrives in a pumpkin coach… The story of the century is wearing glass slippers… and Castle Charming will never be the same again.

PART 3: DRUNK PRINCE IN GAZEBO SHOCK

In which Dennis loses a prince, Kai finds a scandal, and Ziyi struggles with unsatisfactory hairdressing. Corporal Jack is judging you all very hard right now.

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OK I’m a day late posting this, but given that I’m about a month behind everything else in my life, I think I’m doing OK! (that sounded better in my head)

The splendiferous Splendid Chaps episode “Six/Clothes” that I recorded in Melbourne the other week is now up and available to be listened to! John Richards, Ben McKenzie, Petra Elliott, Zen Fletcher and I gather around some alarmingly tall microphones to discuss the Sixth Doctor, Peri, Mel, 80’s fashion, Glitz, Trial of a Time Lord, why the Doctor’s clothes are important, whether the New Who companions’ clothes date them or not (they do), and whether New Who costuming is just a little too… dare we say “safe”?

The episode is capped off by Tim Cav from Dave Wright and the Midnight Electric, doing far greater justice to that well known 1985 hit “Doctor in Distress” than it honestly deserves.

If that whets your appetite for podcasts talking about Doctor Who, sometimes involving me, then check out these recent episodes of the Verity! podcast:

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I’ve been listening to a LOT of audio plays and podcasts lately, what with all that cleaning for birthday parties, sewing birthday presents, and drowning out my children during the last gasp of the summer holidays.

VIENNA: THE MEMORY BOX is the first story of a new spin off series from Big Finish, featuring bounty hunter and space assassin Vienna Salvatori (played by former DS9 actress Chase Masterton). My first reaction to this series, naturally, was to resent that it was greenlit and written so quickly when SOME OF US have been waiting for the Charley Pollard spin off series FOREVER, but Vienna is a fun, banterific character and I liked this first (standalone) story very much, with its planethopping, space hotels, twisty turny plottiness, and great voice performances.

This particular story revolves around a piece of technology called a ‘memory box’ which allows people to store and conceal layers of memory – an essential tool for those with criminal intent in a galaxy where the police have the ability to scan people’s minds at the scene of a crime. I was impressed with how many different ways this particular gadget was used and abused over the course of the story, making it a tidy piece of science fiction. Plus, adorable space cops. SPACE COPS, PEOPLE!

I was deeply sad to read this post by Cheryl Morgan, who is feeling beaten down by the mudslinging she has been experiencing for years, and decided to withdraw her connection to many fan, volunteer and professional projects. Cheryl’s commitment to our community and the science fiction field as a whole has always been inspiring to me, and it’s devastating to realise what the personal cost of that has been for her.

In which we bid farewell to Joanna Russ, talk e-publishing (again) and Alisa reads a real live actual book. With bonus raving about Doctor Who and Alistair Reynolds – in other words, another episode of Galactic Suburbia.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

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A friend has been working steadily away on his fantasy novel. When he finished, he called me up and asked me, “What do I do next?”

My advice was to write Book 2. While it might seem counter-intuitive to keep putting all your eggs into one basket, when it comes to fantasy you learn a lot more from getting to the end of your series than the end of the first volume. Also, you learn so much in writing Book 2 that you can then go back and look at Book 1 with new, jaded, experienced eyes, and rewrite accordingly.

But now he’s finished Book 2, and I feel like I should be able to give a more comprehensive answer.

Only… I’m not exactly an expert in getting published for the first time. None of us are, of course – there are many ways to get published for the first time, and most authors only experience ONE of those. In my case, though, it was a pretty atypical route (involving a competition that no longer exists) so giving advice on how to get to that point is a bit like… well, when friends ask for advice on coping with relationship breakups. (Um, I’ve never had one. Still on my first.) Possibly that is a bad example, because I am AWESOME at being a complete EXPERT on other people’s break ups.

But anyway. My point is that people often look to published authors for advice, and while we can often share really fabulous advice about working methods and business plans and all the stuff we actually do, I’m not sure that we’re always that useful when it comes to helping new writers figure out how to get started. Started was a long time ago for some of us… And while getting published isn’t necessarily easy for us, and certainly isn’t something to be taken for granted, it’s still a whole different game trying to sell a book as someone who has a track record.

I’d like to be able to offer my friend something a bit more substantial than “Query agents first, don’t send the whole books unless they ask for it, don’t pay ‘reading fees,’ yes they REALLY expect a synopsis to be a page or so…” And while I’d like to just send him away to listen to five years’ worth of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing and Will Write for Wine podcasts, possibly he was hoping for a slightly more efficient answer.

So what I’m wondering is – where should I point my friend? What blog posts, what communities, what research hubs? Where are the nearly-published submitting-like-crazy writers hanging out in 2011?

If you had just finished your first fantasy novel, what would you do with it?

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I appeared on the Aqueduct Press blog this week, summing up some of my favourite things about 2010 – TV, podcasts, books, etc. Normally I leave my summing up of the year for New Year’s Eve (always a chance I might squeeze in one more awesome book!) so it was kind of warm and refreshing to get it over with now. I am a huge fangirl of Aqueduct Press, so was very excited to be included in this year’s list of awesome people participating in the “pleasures of reading, viewing, etc.” series of blogs.

I turned in a project today that on the surface looked small and dainty but in actuality turned out to be a mammoth effort, starting back in September right after Worldcon, and occupying a large part of my brain ever since then. I’m delighted with the results – and very proud of it. Possibly it’s the most ME I’ve ever written. In any case, I should be able to announce more about it in due course – but the important thing right now is that it’s DONE. That means the last deadline for 2010 has been met, and I can get on with cleaning the house for Christmas, and facing the impending school holidays with valiant readiness.

My next deadline is 10 Jan for the proofs of Book 2, and the copy edits for Book 3 should be arriving at the same time, which means I will be working through most of Raeli’s school holidays, though hopefully it’s the kind of work that can be done in large sections during sleepover visits, trips to the movies and other activities with people other than me. There are plans afoot.

Daniel Simpson has done a gorgeous review of Galactic Suburbia over at ASiF. It’s a lovely if surreal thing to read – most of the feedback we get is from people we know pretty well, so it’s rather odd to have what we do reflected back at us by someone who isn’t in intimate acquaintance. Also, he seems to like us a lot, which does not hurt at all!

Rowena gives Power and Majesty a shout out over on the King Rolen’s Kin blog. I know exactly what she means about the frustration of using strong stylistic visual images to inspire your writing, and then realising it doesn’t actually come across all that clearly in the text. Something I realised retrospectively about the Creature Court books is that other people didn’t see the 1920’s culture and fashions quite as clearly as I did when I was writing them! Not that these things should be allowed to get in the way of the story, but… sigh. Why don’t they illustrate adult novels?

Speaking of shout outs, I also got one over at the Writer & the Critic podcast, now in its SECOND episode. I am very excited that they are going to review one of the books I recommended to them, even if I can’t quite remember what it is I recommended. I’m sure they were AWESOME. Also I very much enjoyed listening to their contrasting reviews of Feed, both of which brought up a lot of issues about the book that I hadn’t remotely noticed. I’m glad I posted my review before I listened!

I caught a preview for the Doctor Who Christmas Carol on ABC TV this week – so exciting! Funny too – I like the way it totally looks like a proper BBC costume drama right up to the point where the Doctor arrives, covered in soot. I am just bouncing about getting the Christmas special on real TV here in Australia on Boxing Day – it’s going to be PROPER CHRISTMAS AT LAST.

Now I am collapsing in a heap after the 5 day marathon that was making Raeli write Christmas cards for her entire class. And birthday party invitations. Also, we have haircuts. There has been much organisation happening.

Phew. School play tomorrow. Hooray!

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Our special spoilerific book club episode of Galactic Suburbia is available for streaming, download and at iTunes! We separated this from our other episodes so that people who haven’t read the featured novel – Liar by Justine Larbalestier – could easily skip it.

SHOW NOTES:

Consider yourself warned. This is an incredibly spoilery discussion of LIAR by Justine Larbalestier. It’s not a little bit spoilery. It’s a LOT spoilery. And if you don’t believe us that this is the kind of book that you really truly don’t want to be spoiled for, consider the facts:
1) We invented the Galactic Spoilerific Book Club purely to discuss this book
2) We actually feel a bit uncomfortable even mentioning how much you don’t want to be spoiled for this book, because that in itself might mess with your reading experience
3) You trust us, right?
If on the other hand you have read LIAR by Justine Larbalestier, come on by and listen to us flap our hands as we try to articulate just what’s going on in this book.

Also, stretching back into the mists of time before Galactic Suburbia existed (hard to imagine, I know) check out Alex, Alisa and Tansy podcasting back in 2008 with our friend Kathryn, on the (then) entire bibliography of works by Justine. Yes, it’s a Larbalestpalooza!